Heir and Remembrance
by Oboe-Wan
Summary: Silmarillion story - A musing on what becomes of the twin sons of Dior and Nimloth after the sack of Doriath.
1. Prologue

"Celeborn, take her," Dior pleaded urgently, putting his littlest child into his kinsman's arms.  "Take her and leave."

            Celeborn awkwardly put his still bright blade back into its sheath, and accepted the sleeping child.

            Smiling, Dior let his fingers linger on his daughter's face.  Elwing woke to her father's touch, drowsily reaching up to grasp his hand.

            Struck by a sudden inspiration, Dior pulled the ring of Barahir from his finger, and strung it on the delicate mithril chain that disappeared under Elwing's dress.  With a twinge, Celeborn thought of the first hand that had born that ring.  "You shall have to keep that safe for Elured, little one," he told her softly.  "And may it bring you the courage of my father."

            "What about the boys?" Celeborn asked, shifting Elwing so that she could wrap her arms around his neck.

            Nimloth ran her white fingers through Elurin's dark curls.

            "We'll take the boys, and you worry about Elwing," she instructed.  "And we'll meet you at the Sirion.  Hurry Celeborn!"

            Celeborn nodded, reaching out for a moment to grasp Dior's hand.  Dior, the son of his pupil, the husband of his niece, and his friend…

            Nimloth kissed her baby goodbye, and murmured promises of safety and reunion.  A moment later, she bent to pick up the six year old Elurin, while Elured clambered onto his father's back.

            "Go," Dior begged, and with Elwing in his arms, Celeborn obeyed.

            Out of Menegroth, and through Doriath…  Celeborn ran as he had never run, his heart beating against his precious burden.  The leafless trees of Doriath reached out their fingers for a last lingering touch of the Elf who loved them.  And Celeborn did not fight the branches, nor did he slow his pace.

            And only when he'd passed the borders – when Elwing was awake and crying for her mother – did Celeborn turn and see Doriath burning.

            And for the first time, anger very much like hate seethed in Celeborn's once stainless soul.

            The flames lit the starry night with a lurid glow.  Celeborn stared hard for a moment, the image burning itself onto his memory, then turned his eyes to the crying Elwing…

            …Who's little face was lit by a starry glow from within her blankets.

            The Silmaril.

            Dior had placed the Silmaril around his daughter's neck.

            For a confused moment, Celeborn let out a bitter laugh.  Using his own child to hide that thing… The bauble of the Noldor was powerful indeed.

            But to Dior, Celeborn reminded himself, the Silmaril meant something different than it meant even to the sons of Fëanor.  For Dior, the Silmaril was symbol of his parents' love – just as he was.  And it was the reason for their deaths.  Losing the Silmaril would be dishonoring Luthien and her Beren.

            And still Doriath burned…

            _It lies within your power_, a voice in his mind, terribly and painfully like his beloved's, told him, _to stop this_.  _The gem around the child's neck…_

            _What of it?  Shall I give it over to the bloodstained hands of the Noldor?_

            The Silmaril.  The light of the Trees, the power of the Valar.  This…to save his people, and to save Doriath…

            Celeborn found his eyes fixed on its glow, permeating the threads of Elwing's dress.  The worst fascination of the Silmaril, was that its glow was familiar…

            A star confined in shimmering, faceted crystal.  Like the glint of moonlight on Galadriel's hair.

            Pulling at the mithril chain, Celeborn took a good hard look at the Silmaril through his tears.

            He would never understand it.

            For this gem, Beren had traded his very flesh.

            For this gem, Fëanor had spilled the blood of the Teleri – and the blood of the Noldor in turn.

            For this gem, his sons slaughtered their own kin – and their kin fell protecting it.

            For this gem, the Elves were torn with strife among themselves, such that Morgoth must rejoice.

            For this gem, Doriath burned.

            Her tears forgotten, Elwing reached towards the glow, laughing as it suffused her little fingers and made Celeborn's silver hair shimmer.

            Could he undermine Dior's authority, for Doriath, and placate Maedhros with his father's bauble?

            And even if he could…

            If he went back, could he keep himself from trying to make the kinsmen of his wife pay for all they'd made him and his people suffer?

            Adjusting his hold on Elwing, Celeborn resumed his course towards the river.  And Elwing played with the Silmaril, fastened around her neck by her father's hands.

            Galadriel wrapped her arms around her husband's chest from behind, trying with all her strength to keep him there.

            "You cannot go back, Celeborn," she pleaded, her hands wet with his tears.

            "If there's a chance…  Damn it Galadriel, they're children!"

            "Menegroth is aflame!  There isn't a chance!"

            Celeborn turned on her suddenly, his face smudged with dirt, and his long silver-bright hair tangled.  "How can you…"

            She met his eyes, hers hard, and her voice very quiet.  "Don't.  You're all I have.  Don't throw your life away on a chance that doesn't exist.  Don't leave me alone."

            Celeborn very gently disengaged her arms from around him.

            "I have to go back."

            "Celeborn, don't think they won't kill you because of me," she said, harsh tone covering the emotion her eyes could not hide.

            "I'm sorry.  I have to go back," he repeated, pulling away from her.

            "My Lord," a soot-covered elf in the remains of a guard uniform interrupted.  "Prince Dior is dead.  Saw his body.  Lady Nimloth as well.  And they took the little ones away," he said, voice dead.

            Galadriel watched Celeborn fight to master his anger, his knuckles turning white as he tightened his fists.

            "Iluvatar forgive them," he murmured at last, "for I cannot."

            Galadriel found herself fighting back her own tears, until Celeborn reached out to her.  And then she wept on his shoulder as he did on hers.

            The soldier drew back.  "May you find comfort in the arms of your Noldor bride, Prince Celeborn," he bade, his words, despite their bitterness, sounding genuine.

…And so befell the second slaying of Elf by Elf.  There fell Celegorm by Dior's hand, there fell Curufin, and dark Caranthir; but Dior was slain also, and Nimloth his wife, and the cruel servants of Celegorm seized his young sons and left them to starve in the forest.  Of this Maedhros indeed repented, and sought for them long in the woods of Doriath; but his search was unavailing, and of the fate of Elured and Elurin no tale tells…

 - "Of the Ruin of Doriath," _The Silmarillion_


	2. I

"Doriath has fallen."

            Melian the Maia, lately the lady of Menegroth, did not stir in response to this statement.  

"Of course it has."

The words sounded thin and pale, much as she herself looked.  She'd allowed her appearance as one of the Firstborn to slip slightly.  Her spirit shone like the sun through her sheer veil of flesh, but it was the cold, white sun of a grey midwinter morning.

"Nimloth weeps for her children."

            Melian, again, did not look up at the speaker.  "Who does not?" she murmured.

            Olórin shook his head in defeat.  The little elf-maid who waited on Melian clasped her hands in front of her tightly, her expression grave.  Olórin drew the elf-girl aside.

            "Nothing I say can get even that much response from her," Amarië of the Vanyar told him quietly.  "I wonder if it would not be best just to leave her?"

            "No," Olórin replied thoughtfully.  "She has spoken, at least.  It does not do for anyone to dwell too long on things past," he said, a meaningful look directed at Amarië.

            Amarië ignored it.  "What other news of Doriath?"

            "Of whom do you seek tidings?" Olórin asked her probingly.

            She sighed.  "Galadriel and I were never friends.  But I do not wish for her death."

            "Well, she did not come with the others.  She dwells still in Middle-Earth."

            Amarië nodded.  "Good."

            Olórin smiled sadly.  "Too many," he began quietly, but stopped.

            "Who," Amarië asked curiously, "Is Nimloth?"

            "A kinswoman of Melian's Elwë, and the bride of her grandson Dior."

            As though afraid to ask, Amarië hesitantly continued.  "And why does she weep?"

            Olórin sighed darkly.  "She died with her children in her arms.  And she knows not their fate."

            Eluréd, ever the decisive of the twins, seated himself on the frost encrusted moss of the forest floor, and cried.

            Elurín watched his brother cry, but managed somehow not to join him.  He was thirsty, and he felt he'd spent every drop of water in his little body already on tears.  He looked down at the red brown stains on his chubby hands.  He wanted to wash them.

            "Let's find the river," he suggested, tugging and his brother's sleeve.

            Eluréd buried his face in his arms and didn't respond.

            Elurín's tugs became more insistent.  He was _thirsty_.

            Eluréd looked up suddenly, pale face tear-streaked, and grey eyes wet.  "No!  We're LOST.  And we're supposed to stay in one place till someone FINDS us," he said forcefully, voice a little hoarse from crying.

            Elurín considered this.  They'd been lost once before.  Well… maybe more than once.  He felt a glimmer of confidence.  Uncle Celeborn would find them.  He always could.  He knew the forest like other people knew their way around their houses. He could find them in the dark, without even stirring a leaf.

            Elurín rubbed at a bruise coming out on his arm.  He wasn't sure why.  Rubbing didn't help very much.  But he felt he ought to do something about it.  The purple blotches were shaped like fingers.  Fingers that had been attached to a hand, attached to an arm covered in little pieces of metal like the scales of a fish, attached to a broad shoulder, attached to a graceful neck, attached to a beautiful golden head.  The people who'd brought he and his brother here had been Golden.  Tall and slender and golden, and terrifying.  They had not dared follow them back.

            "Eluréd," Elurín began, voice very small.  "What if _they_ find us?"

            Eluréd bit his lip, and met his brother's eyes.

            "Uncle Celeborn will still find us if we move," Eluréd stated, standing up and rubbing at his face.  His hands left red brown streaks on his wet cheeks.  These bothered Elurín as much as the stains on his hands.  Elurín was glad he could not see his own face.  If they could just find the stream, they could wash the red brown off.

            Olórin stood impatiently on the white shore, his shimmering grey robes trailing in the fine sand, with the waves lapping at their hem.

            Manwë had always had trouble denying Nienna anything.  Centuries ago, he had yielded to her compassionate plea for Melkor's pardon.  Sympathetic to a fault, once the Lady of Mourning took a mission, she would not leave it undone.  And Olórin's teacher had readily agreed to his plan, as Nimloth and Dior's pleas from Mandos tore at her heart.  It would soothe their restless spirits, and that would please Nienna.   And perhaps it would draw Melian's interest back to the living. Olórin would do just about anything to call his friend of old from her darkness.

            He stared for a moment, at the stars over Valinor.  If the Valar would just allow him to attend this himself…  He would feel less useless.  But Manwë had deemed that it was not his time to go East.  Ah well.  The task went to good hands.

            "Did you summon me here only to ignore me?" a woman's voice asked softly, amused.

            Olórin brought his eyes back down abruptly as Uinen, bright hair hanging in dripping locks, crossed her arms and waited.  The waves caught the hem of her blue gown, swirling it around her ankles until it was unclear what was fabric and what was water – if indeed there ever had been a division.

            "Indeed, I could not, since you do not hesitate to interrupt someone's thoughts with your impatience," Olórin retorted, smiling.

            Uinen returned his smile, then it faded.  "How is Melian?" she inquired.

            Olórin grimaced.  "Unwell.  Which is why I ask your help."

            "Then I am at your service," she said quickly.  "And curious," she added.


	3. II

Elurín knelt at the stream's edge, and scrubbed his mother's blood from his hands.  The water was icy – he'd had to break a thin layer of ice, decorated with the delicate tracery of frost, to get to the running water beneath.  His fingers were growing stiff, and, satisfied that they were clean, Elurín stood.

            Eluréd was seated further back from the stream, watching the snowflakes dance their way from between the bare treetops, glinting in the moonlight like little stars, or shards of an Elven-gem.

            Shivering, Elurín pulled his wet fists back into his sleeves, and trudged over the pebbly stretch to huddle against his twin. 

            "I'm hungry," Eluréd told him, seeming to be comforted by the fact that he could say it aloud.

            "And cold," Elurín added, seeing if saying as much helped.  It did, a little.

            Eluréd bit his lip.  "It's kind of like the story," he offered.  Eluréd loved stories.

            Usually, Elurín had no trouble picking up his brother's train of thought, and following it.  But… he was too tired and miserable to try.  "What story?" he asked indifferently.

            "Well," Eluréd began, "Grandfather was lost in the forest.  Maybe right here.  And then he saw Grandmother.  Maybe she'll find us too."

            Elurín decided not to remind Eluréd that Mother had explained to them that Grandmother and Grandfather had gone to live with Eru, because He loved them.  He was sure Eluréd remembered.

            Mother…

            "Or," Eluréd continued quietly, "Mother and Father will wake up."        

            Elurín didn't know how to reply to that.  He'd shaken Mother so much, and called her so hard, and she wouldn't open her eyes.

            Instead of answering, Elurín curled closer to his brother, still shivering.  Softly, the snow fell about the huddled forms of the little princes of Doriath.

            There were those among the Noldor who had ample cause to know that Elves could indeed die of cold and hunger.[1]

"Wake, little ones!"

            Elurín felt a hand on his head – wet, but warm.  He opened his eyes and peered between his snow-laden lashes at the face smiling at him.

            It was a woman's face, and both beautiful and gentle.  He smiled back before he knew what he was doing.

            "Are you Grandmother?" he asked drowsily of the lady who knelt before him, his brother's words still fresh in his mind.

            The lady's smile turned a little sad as she shook her head, snowflakes catching in her loose curls of silver hair.

            "No, my sweet one, I am not Lúthien the Fair."

            Elurín felt a little silly.  Of _course_ she wasn't.  Grandmother had black hair, like Father's, and like his.

            "My Master[2] has given me permission to bring you home.  Would you come with me, little princes?"

            "Home?" Eluréd repeated eagerly.

            She smiled her sad smile again, lifted her hands from their heads, and stood.  Missing the warmth, Elurín reached up quickly when she offered them her hands.

            When he stepped forward with her, he gazed about at the clean white blanket of snow laid over the ground.  It was bare when he'd sat down, and he wondered how much time had passed as he and his brother huddled together.  The snow was swirling thickly around them, and it seemed to fall faster by the moment.

            The lady led them back to the stream, then stooped to lift them.  Elurín she gathered in her right arm, and Eluréd in her left.  Elurín concluded, as she balanced them on her hips, that she must be very strong, because even Father had trouble carrying them both.

            She smelled…strange.  Strange and pretty - Like water, but salty.  She stepped out onto the small margin of ice at the edge of the stream, and then to the water still running in the middle.  When she began striding downstream, the current caught the edge of her blue skirt in its ripples and eddies, and Eluréd watched, fascinated.

            Looking back at the bank, Elurín wondered that only two sets of little shallow footprints on the surface of the snow led from the spot where he and Eluréd had been sitting.

  


* * *

[1] A reference to the crossing of Helcaraxë by the people of Finarfin and Fingolfin – See Le Chat Noir for more on the subject.

[2] Uinen's Master would be Ulmo, Lord of the Waters


	4. III

Since Olórin's regular visits, Melian began to seem a little more interested in her surroundings.  These woods had been her home, long ago.  And she had been content under their branches, singing with the nightingales.  But even as her eyes strayed about the woods of Lórien, she began to murmur to herself a broken, confused lament for Doriath.  

            Sometimes Melian sang in Sindarin, a lovely, flowing tongue which Amarië did not understand.  Sometimes she spoke in Quenya, and Amarië copied down all the words she could catch in her neat, precise hand.

            How silly, to feel a twinge every time she lifted a quill, remembering the laughing, golden lad who'd taught her to hold it, and to form the letters his uncle had made.

            And yet, she cherished the little pang of pain, as she did all of the pricks that never let her go more than a few moments without thinking of her beloved.

            And although Melian might not believe it, Amarië knew she could fathom a little of the Maia's sorrow.

_A nightingale flew in Doriath, which is no more…_

            Amarië found herself struck by this line.   She stared at it when Melian fell silent, rubbing the end of her quill against her nose.

            "Lúthien used to do that," Melian said softly.

            Amarië looked up sharply.  This was the first time Melian had spoken _to_ her attendant.

            "What is your name?" Melian asked, rubbing at her head.

            "I am called Amarië, Lady Melian," she replied, putting down her quill and tucking a strand of straight, dark gold hair behind her ear.

            "Amarië?  Why do I know that name?" Melian murmured.

            Amarië blinked.  "Galadriel was your companion, was she not?"

            Melian nodded.  "For many decades."

            Breaking eye contact, Amarië played with her quill.  "That explains it then.  Lady Galadriel's eldest brother and I… were to wed," she concluded quietly.

            "Finrod?" 

            Amarië nodded with a soft, sad smile.

            "And then he traded his life for my Lúthien's happiness.  You poor dear child."

            "But Lady Melian," Amarië argued, shaking her head, "Mandos is no further from my arms than Middle-Earth."

            "Sometimes," Melian began, her voice dreamy, "I wonder how things might've been different, had my Elwë followed me here, instead of staying as we did, in Beleriand under the stars."

            Amarië had been haunted by her own such questions, since…

            _"I cannot ask you…" Finrod began, his eyes deep and liquid, and the starlight caught in his thatch of golden curls._

_            "Forgive me," she murmured, her tears soaking into his tunic._

_            "Always," he whispered, kissing the top of her head.  "Always."_

            Olórin was right.

            It was not good to dwell on the past.

Uinen put her hands on her hips sternly.  "Out of the water, children."

            Two little dolphins turned somersaults in the surf.

            Olórin crossed his arms, an amused smile trying to pull at the corners of his mouth.  "Dolphins?"

            Uinen shrugged.  "It seemed the best way to get them here.  And besides… they've had precious little to be happy about.  I've never met a sad dolphin."

            "True.  But…"

            She nodded.  "I know."

            The two little dolphins disappeared under the waves, and when they reamerged, they were two very wet elf-children, who promptly started crying as they flailed their limbs about to keep afloat.

             Wading waist deep into the waves, Uinen scooped up Eluréd, who clung to her, and Olórin put his staff aside on the beach to retrieve Elurín.

            Wiping at his tears and pushing his sopping black curls from in front of his eyes, Elurín, son of Dior, considered Olórin, called the wisest of the Maiar.

            "Are you going to take me to my Mother and Father?" he asked after a moment.

            Olórin shook his head.  "I cannot."

            Elurín's eyes filled with tears again, and Eluréd clung tighter to Uinen.  

            "But… you _said_," Eluréd pleaded to her.

            "You _are_ home, little one," she said, holding him tight.  "Valinor – Elvenhome"

            Eluréd burst out crying, and Elurín looked from Uinen back to Olórin.

            "I want Mother," he whispered, tears pouring down his face.

            "So you shall, my child," Olórin answered, his voice comforting, but sad.  "So you shall."

It had been Melian's Garden since the first time she'd planted flowers at the base of the mallorn trees of the little grove, and sang to help them grow.

            But for too long, Melian's enchantments had been for sterner causes.

            Doriath, the Hidden Kingdom, had been her garden too.

            Olórin, with a now quiet Elurín in his arms, strode between the trees, until he caught sight of Amarië, sitting in the grass with her quill moving smoothly across her little book.  Melian lay nearby, staring listlessly at the canopy of emerald leaves, fluttering in the breeze from the ocean.

            Amarië looked up at their approach, and blinked at Olórin's companion, and their burdens.

            "Visitors, my lady," she told Melian, closing her quill into her book to keep her place.

            Olórin and Uinen set the dark-haired children on their feet.  The little boys rubbed at their identical tear-streaked faces, and reached for each other's hands.  Melian sat up, and for a moment, could only stare at them – the image of their father, who had been the image of his mother.

            "The princes of Doriath have come to Melian's first garden," Olórin told her gently.

            "Eluréd… and Elurín," she murmured.  She had been present at their birth, but she spoke the names as if it was the first time.

            Heir of Elwë.

            Remembrance of Elwë.

            The children struggled to remember their great-grandmother, and their tears started anew, since she looked so much like Father.

            Looking into the teary eyes of her daughter's son's sons, Melian felt any regrets she'd ever harbored melt like snow under the afternoon sun.

            If she and Elwë had not remained in Beleriand, Lúthien might still dance to the nightingales' song in Valinor.

            But Dior, son of Beren, would never have lived.

            And his children would not be before her now.

            Melian gathered Eluréd and Elurín close to her, and ran her fingers through their coal-black curls as they wept onto her shoulders.  And through her own tears, she smiled.

I wrote this story as a result of two very unsatisfying holes in the Silmarillion – where the story just stops, and leaves what becomes of the characters in question up to the reader.

The first hole is in the quotation of "Of the Ruin of Doriath" at the end of the Prologue.  In reference to Eluréd and Elurín, "…of their fate, no tale tells."

The second, has to do with Melian being left to "ponder her sorrows" in Lórien, after the death of Elwë.

And somehow, in my mind, the two connected. 

Sometimes, I wonder if Professor Tolkien didn't almost _expect_ us to write fiction based on his work…  It's just too easy!!!  I (obviously) can't resist!

The Prologue, I blame entirely on Celeborn.

Many, many thanks to all who reviewed the Prologue so encouragingly!  And particular thanks to Deborah, for helping me iron the idea to begin with, and to Ekuboryu and Anne-sempai for reading as I wrote.

---- I'm waiting for the donuts, Haleth!


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